It was the author's endeavour to "improve plain cookery and to render food acceptable to the palate without being expensive to the purse"—a precept altogether admirable. The preface to the third edition emphasises, very truly, that among the manifold causes which concur to impair health and produce disease, the most general is the improper quality of food, this most frequently arising from the injudicious manner in which it is prepared. Yet it remains to be added that since the days of the "Oracle" man has greatly improved in this respect, even in England; that despite the multiplicity of diseases, hygiene is becoming far better understood by the masses; and that for the various ills arising through the stomach, chemistry and the doctors have devised numerous simple correctives which have proved of inestimable value.
The key-note of the "Oracle" is contained in the sentence, "Unless the stomach be in good humour, every part of the machinery of life must vibrate with languor,"—a sentiment with which all those who have touched twoscore will profoundly agree. It is for elderly stomachs whose bloom may have been somewhat brushed off that the doctor's counsels will be found preëminently deserving of attention. To the epicure he likewise proved an excellent mentor; to the dyspeptic, a friend in need.
That he was strongly influenced by the writings of Grimod de la Reynière is readily perceptible, though he states in the introduction that his work is a bona-fide register of practical facts, and that he has not printed a recipe which has not been proved in his own kitchen. Before undertaking his task, he had consulted all the treatises obtainable on the subject, amounting to no less than two hundred and fifty volumes. These, he asserts, vary very little from one another, and any one who has occasion to refer to two or three of them will find the recipes almost always the same—equally unintelligible to those who are ignorant, and useless to those who are acquainted with the business of the kitchen. The numerous "Good Housewife's Closets," "Ladies' Companions," and "Gentlewomen's Cabinets," in fact, are virtually identical, save for their titles and forewords.
With the recipes of the "Oracle" the reader need not be as much concerned as with its spirit and its epicurean principles, which reveal a strongly marked individuality, and a comprehension far in advance of the time in Great Britain. Oracular and discursive, the author ambles pleasantly along the road of Conviviality, scattering his maxims and dispensing his formulas, while dipping into volume after volume to emphasise his text. The "Oracle" may be briefly described as a quaint medley of cookery, hygienic precepts, science, gastronomy, and domestic economy, written by a bon vivant. A long chapter is devoted to the subject of invitations to dinner, wherein punctuality is strictly insisted upon—dining, according to the writer, being the only act of the day which cannot be put off with impunity for even five minutes. He would have the cook the warden in chief, as defined by Mercier, a physician who cures two mortal maladies, Hunger and Thirst; or a Hominum servatorem—a preserver of mankind, as designated by Plautus. A good dinner, he maintains, is one of the greatest enjoyments of human life; but it should never be at the mercy of belated guests,—"what will be agreeable to the stomach and restorative to the system at five o'clock will be uneatable and indigestible at a quarter past." When he himself gave a dinner-party, the guests were invited for five o'clock, and at five minutes after the hour specified, the street door was locked, and the key, by his order, was set aside. But it is perhaps in the chapter on advice to cooks, and in his directions as to the minutiæ of boiling, baking, roasting, and frying, that he is most suggestive. A characteristic farewell to the reader concludes the volume, which even to-day may be consulted with profit—an observation that will also apply to many portions of its companion treatise, "The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life."
Less pretentious, and dealing more with the æsthetic side of good living, are the essays of the "Original," by Thomas Walker, barrister at law and magistrate, which treat of the pleasures of the table under the titles, "The Art of Attaining High Health" and "The Art of Dining."[41] These critical dissertations originally appeared in 1835 in a weekly periodical of which he was the editor, the series terminating with his death the subsequent year. And if the influence of the "Almanach" is readily discernible in the case of Dr. Kitchener, so in like manner one detects a flavour of the "Physiology" in the genial pages of Walker. Kitchener undoubtedly proves himself the more valiant trencherman, while Walker remains the more refined and philosophic host.
His golden rule was, "Content the stomach and the stomach will content you." A little irregularity in agreeable company he deems better than the best observance in solitude. When dining alone is necessary, however, he adds that the mind should be disposed to cheerfulness by a previous interval of relaxation from whatever has seriously occupied the attention, and by directing it to some agreeable object. And so contentment ought to be an accompaniment to every meal. Punctuality becomes the more essential, and the diner and the dinner should be ready at the same time. Concerning dining in comfort, he holds that a chief maxim is to have what you want when you want it, and not be obliged to wait for little additions to be supplied, when what they belong to is half or entirely finished.
The plates should be brought in before the dish, and the dish and its adjuncts appear simultaneously; in other words, the necessary condiments should always be at hand, and the wines should stand ready to be poured out at the moment required,—the lesson of patience, however desirable, is not a virtue that should be inculcated at the dinner-table; and prompt service must ever form a great desideratum of the perfect meal. In dining, more than anything else, perhaps, whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, though this were far from meaning that lavish expenditure need enter into the hospitable relations of host and guests. Forethought and careful personal attention, it may be reiterated, play a most important part at the board of Good Cheer; and simple dishes unexceptionally prepared and served, with the beverages that naturally accompany them at the proper temperature, will garnish any table with a cloth of gold. "A good soup, a small turbot, a neck of venison, ducklings with green peas, or chicken with asparagus, and an apricot tart," the Earl of Dudley was accustomed to say, "is a dinner for an emperor." There are those possibly who might prefer the much more simple menu of a French gourmet,—"A bottle of Chambertin, a ragoût à la Sardanapale, and a pretty lady causeur, are the three best companions at table in France."
But it will be rendering greater justice to the author to permit him to speak for himself on some of the niceties connected with the art he has expounded so wisely and so well:
"Anybody can dine, but few know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment" [he agrees with Dumas and Fayot]. "Indeed, many people contrive to destroy their health; and as to enjoyment, I shudder when I think how often I have been doomed to only a solemn mockery of it; how often I have sat in durance stately, to go through the ceremony of dinner, the essence of which is to be without ceremony, and how often in this land of liberty I have felt myself a slave.
"There is in the art of dining a matter of special importance—I mean attendance, the real end of which is to do that for you which you cannot so well do for yourself. Unfortunately, this end is generally lost sight of, and the effect of attendance is to prevent you from doing that which you could do much better for yourself. The cause of this perversion is to be found in the practice and example of the rich and ostentatious, who constantly keep up a sort of war-establishment, or establishment adapted to extraordinary instead of ordinary occasions, and the consequence is that, like all potentates who follow the same policy, they never really taste the sweets of peace; they are in a constant state of invasion by their own troops. It is a rule at dinners not to allow you to do anything for yourself, and I have never been able to understand how even salt, except it be from some superstition, has so long maintained its place. I am rather a bold man at table and set form very much at defiance, so that if a salad happens to be within my reach, I make no scruple to take it to me; but the moment I am espied, it is nipped up from the most convenient into the most inconvenient position. See a small party with a dish of fish at each end of the table, and four silver covers standing unmeaningly at the sides, whilst everything pertaining to the fish comes, even with the best attendance, provokingly lagging, one thing after another, so that contentment is out of the question; and all this is done under pretence that it is the most convenient plan. This is an utter fallacy. The only convenient plan is to have everything actually upon the table that is wanted at the same time, and nothing else; as, for example, for a party of eight, turbot and salmon, with doubles of each of the adjuncts, lobster-sauce, cucumber, young potatoes, cayenne, and Chili vinegar, and let the guests assist one another, which with such an arrangement they could do with perfect ease. This is undisturbed and visible comfort.
"A system of simple attendance would induce a system of simple dinners, which are the only dinners to be desired.... With respect to wine, it is often offered when not wanted; and when wanted, is perhaps not to be had till long waited for. It is dreary to observe two guests, glass in hand, waiting the butler's leisure to take wine together, and then perchance being helped in despair to what they did not ask for; and it is still more dreary to be one of the two yourself. How different when you can put your hand on a decanter the moment you want it!"
"Perhaps the most distressing incident in a grand dinner" [the author continues] "is to be asked to take champagne, and after much delay to see the butler extract the bottle from a cooler, and hold it nearly parallel to the horizon in order to calculate how much he is to put into the first glass to leave any for the second. To relieve him and yourself from the chilling difficulty, the only alternative is to change your mind and prefer sherry, which, under the circumstances, has rather an awkward effect. These and an infinity of minor evils are constantly experienced amidst the greatest displays. Some good bread and cheese and a jug of ale comfortably set before me, and heartily given, are heaven and earth in comparison.... The legitimate objects of dinner are to refresh the body, to please the palate, and to raise the social humour to the highest point; but these objects, so far from being studied, in general are not even thought of, and display and an adherence to fashion are their meagre substitutes."